ddw- Congrats on the "faster and thicker" epiphanies.
I am at a plateau in my playing, right in between "play everything by ear after 15-20 minutes" and "improv in bluegrass keys, even if you haven't heard the song EVER". It is a tough place to be, and advancements come along only so often.
I am currently working on a few tunes, and have scaled back my happiness and knowledge quotient from "epiphany" to "dang, I played 4 bars at performance tempo and didn't mess up".
Tunes are "Old Ebeneezer Scrooge", David Grier version..."Cherokee Shuffle, 240bpm", Steve Kaufmann version...and the killer, "Big Sciota", Russ Barenberg version.
Happy pickin' to y'all